Sometimes I feel like an empty bank.
Withdrawals are tying to be made but there is nothing there.
Or maybe more like a car whose main tank has ran dry and running on reserves.
Do you know that feeling?
I’m being asked to enter into more periods of suffering.
I don’t see how.
I’m being asked to build with little to nothing.
I don’t know where to pull from.
I also feel like I’m being pulled in multiple of ways.
I’m being asked to go lower, to build higher, to move laterally, and forward at the same time.
I’m left feeling like I have no choice but to let go, give up control and just follow the leading.
Wisdom (worldly) screams at me this is not smart, safe or adding to you in any way. Don’t do it.
Wisdom (the Holy Spirit) whispers to me to move by faith. You must.
What happened to me?
I used to scream denial of self, the beauty of suffering, the abandonment of understanding and self pursuits in the most radical and dangerous ways as the only way.
<Pause…Deep reflection>
When did I start caring again?
When did I start wanting to save my life?
When did I shift from wanting to live instead of dying daily to self?
It has hit me hard in this moment, that somehow the desire for comfort, security, love and relationship, stability, purpose, worldly success and maybe even validation has crept in. may it was always there jut suppressed.
It has me thinking in this moment, what all this was supposed to be for?
What is the promise?
It’s as though I’m asked to live in the promised land with a wilderness mindset?
Will I ever be able to have joy again or am I fated to suffer forever?
Will I ever experience love again or am I meant to live a life in isolation?
Will I ever have another friend, or will a friend only be to my downfall?
As I ask these questions, I believe that there was a time when I knew this would be forever and I was content with that.
The world would swirl around me, and I would be in the eye of it. Just me and Jesus.
Then I started believing it would only be for a season. It wouldn’t always be like this, only for a time.
Then I believed it was all over and that I was in my promised land.
Where am I Lord?
Locate me.
Holy Spirit,
Go back to the beginning. You were ready and prepared to not only give everything up for me but to never return to it again. It wasn’t about you. It was about Me. You have given your job, relationships, marriage, children, personal possessions, home, all. Nothing was off-limits. You may have struggled at times, but your answer was not no, it was how? If you want to progress in this journey, you must follow me with blind trust, faith. You must go low when I tell you to go low, build with what you have as I instruct and connect to who I bring in your life. Jennifer, what you have lost sight of is that your life is not your own. It belongs to me. You and I cannot run this life together. Some of you, 99% of you is not enough. It is much. All of you is required and before we can move forward, I need that last 1% you are holding onto.
Jennifer,
How?
Holy Spirit:
You know where to start. Do that and I will continue to lead you from there.
Question of the day
Have things changed for you in your walk with the Lord? How so?
This journey can take its toll. We can go from a ready yes to a 'let me see if that serves me' mindset. Take time today to reflect on your intensity and fire for the Lord. Is it the same as when you started this journey? Is your willingness to suffer still the same? Take these questions before the Lord and ask him to help you understand the change and the strategy to move forward.
Scripture
2 Corinthians 13
5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test.
Requirements of discipleship
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ...
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
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